The original definition as "the study of man's nature as it
has become manifest in the Greeks" is no longer accepted
because of:

the fragmentation of science through specialization

the deculturation of Western society

The loss is not seen as a catastrophe because in the current
"climate of opinion" the nature of man is not of interest. It
has even become an object of hatred because man's nature has
proved resistant to change by those motivated by the will to
power.

And yet, man's nature is real and there is always a struggle
against the climate of opinion (the "age") which in the light
of reason becomes a pathological deformation of experience.
Classical studies are considered objectionable because they
inevitably lead to investigation of human nature.

Some of the disagreements between the classic "philosophy as
the science of the nature of man" and the modern climate of
opinion:

Classic

Modern

There is a nature of man, a definite
structure of existence that puts limits on
perfectibility.

The nature of man can be changed, either
through historical evolution or through revolutionary
action, so that a perfect realm of freedom can be
established in history

Philosophy is the endeavor to advance from
opinion (doxa) about the order of man and society
to science (episteme); the philosopher is not a
philodoxer.

No science in such matters is possible,
only opinion; everybody is entitled to his opinions; we
have a pluralist society.

Society is man written large.

Man is society written small.

Man exists in erotic tension toward the
divine ground.

He doesn't; for I don't; and I'm the
measure of man.

Man is disturbed by the question of the
ground; by nature he is a questioner (aphorein)
and seeker (zetein) for the whence, the where to,
and the why of his existence; he will raise the question:
Why is there something rather than nothing?

Such questions are otiose (Comte); don't
ask them, be a socialist man (Marx); questions to which the
sciences of world-immanent things can give no answer are
senseless, they are Scheinprobleme
(neopositivism).

The feeling of existential unrest, the
desire to know, the feeling of being moved to question, the
questioning and seeking itself, the direction of the
questioning toward the ground that moves to be sought, the
recognition of the divine ground as the mover, are the
experiential complex, the pathos, in which the
reality of divine-human participation (metalepsis)
becomes luminous. The exploration of the metaleptic
reality, of the Platonic metaxy, as well as the
articulation of the exploratory action through language
symbols, in Plato's case of his Myths, are the central
concern of the philosopher's efforts.

The modern responses to this central issue change with
the "climate of opinion".

In Locke the metaleptic reality and its noetic
analysis is transformed into the acceptance of certain
"common opinions" which still bear an intelligible
relation to the experience from which they derive. The
reduction of reality to opinion, however, is not
deliberate; Locke is already so deeply involved in the
climate of opinion that his awareness for the
destruction of philosophy through the transition from
episteme to doxa is dulled. Cf.
Willey's presentation of the Lockean case. [Basil
Willey, Background studies, beginning in
1934].

Hegel, on the contrary, is acutely aware of what he
is doing when he replaces the metaleptic reality of
Plato and Aristotle by his state of alienation as the
experiential basis for the construction of his
speculative system. He makes it explicitly his program
to overcome philosophy by the dialectics of a
self-reflective alienated consciousness.

In the twentieth century, the "climate of opinion"
has advanced to the tactics of the "silent treatment".
In a case like Sartre's, metaleptic reality is simply
ignored. Existence has the character of meaningless
facticité; its endowment with meaning
is left to the free choice of man. The choice of a
meaning for existence falls with preference on the
opinion of totalitarian regimes who engage in
mass-murder, like the Stalinist; the preference has
been elaborated with particular care by Merleau-Ponty.
The tactics of the "silent treatment", especially
employed after the Second World War by the "liberation
rabble", however, make it difficult to decide in
individual cases whether the counterposition to
metaleptic reality is deliberate, or whether the
libido dominandi is running amok in a climate
of opinion that is taken for granted, without
questioning, as its ultimate reality. On the whole, I
have the impression that the consciousness of a
counterposition is distinctly less alive than it still
was at the time of Hegel. Philosophical illiteracy has
progressed so far that the experiential core of
philosophizing has disappeared below the horizon and is
not even recognized as such when it appears in
philosophers like Bergson. The deculturation process
has eclipsed it so thoroughly by opinion that sometimes
one hesitates to speak even of indifference to it.

Education is the art of
periagoge, of turning around (Plato).

Education is the art of adjusting people
so solidly to the climate of opinion prevalent at the time
that they feel no "desire to know". Education is the art of
preventing people from acquiring the knowledge that would
enable them to articulate the questions of existence.
Education is the art of pressuring young people into a
state of alienation that will result in either quiet
despair or aggressive militancy.

The process in which metaleptic reality
becomes conscious and noetically articulate is the process
in which the nature of man becomes luminous to itself as
the life of reason. Man is the zoon noun
echon.

Reason is instrumental reason. There is no
such thing as a noetic rationality of man.

Through the life of reason (bios
theoretikos) man realizes his freedom.

Plato and Aristotle were fascists. The
life of reason is a fascist enterprise.

The international student revolt revealed cracks in the
established climate of opinion, "but one should not expect the
life of reason to emerge from the confrontation of two
vacua".

More important are the advances of the historical sciences
which form a a sort of underground resistance. Since critical
analysis of the current "age" is not allowed, they are refugees
into the past.

The question is whether scientists in these advancing
historical sciences will ever go beyond description of certain
phenomena and ask whether the phenomena are true.

If the historical sciences lead to restoration of the life
of reason, classical studies will have an important role. Greek
philosophy made human nature intelligible and developed the
symbols for its self-interpretation.

In the following two areas, no major advance of science is
possible without recourse to, and resumption of, Greek
philosophy:

theoretical exploration of the mountains of data
collected by modern historical science

exploration of existential deformation (for example,
"alienation") and its varieties